The perverse truth is that, in some ways, the Obama administration is in greater violation of Geneva than even the Bush-Cheney administration.

The Bush-Cheney administration denied - absurdly - that it ever conducted torture. President Obama has clearly stated on many occasions that it was torture. Geneva requires every government to investigate thoroughly and promptly all such acts of torture and bring the guilty to justice. Cheney could claim there was nothing to investigate - so he was in the clear. Obama, having conceded torture, has no such option.

The current refusal of the president to investigate the torture so prevalent in the previous administration may make sense from the narrow political perspective of Rahm Emanuel. It is not worthy of the seriousness and integrity of president Obama and it is not worthy of the United States of America. To my mind, exposing and ridding this cancer is more important than holding every single person criminally responsible. A deal in which a pardon would be followed by a rigorous truth commission, empowered to expose every single facet of what went on, would not be justice. But it would be some level of accountability.

The odds of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. sitting before Congress and telling the truth is about 1 : 759,232,923,114. This is why I've always thought that Obama and Holder need to go after them. But they won't. And if they don't, that will be part of Obama's legacy.